Lisa Wingate was a new author discovery for me last year. I posted already on the very first novella in this Carolina Heirlooms Series, as well as another stand-alone novel called Before We Were Yours.
Wingate’s books, (and she has many besides this series), are easy-to-read contemporary women’s fiction with a historical fiction element. I like the pacing and the characters in her books, even though the endings are usually predictable and the novels a bit forgettable. She obviously does her research well and comes up with some interesting storylines, settings, and historical truth. This series takes place mostly in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Outer Banks, a thin circle of islands and sand dunes extending in an arc out from the US east coast. Before this series I never knew the Outer Banks existed. I also learned about the Lost Colony of Roanoke and the Federal Writer’s Project.
The Carolina Heirlooms Collection is comprised of 3 novels with 3 novellas as prequel and interspersed between the main books. I read them in order, but I don’t think that was entirely necessary. There are characters that keep reappearing but there is not really an important chronology. Here is the list:
#.5 The Sea Glass Sisters
#1.0 The Prayer Box
# 1.5 The Tidewater Sisters
#2.0 The Story Keeper
#2.5 The Sandcastle Sister
#3.0 The Sea Keeper’s Daughters
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